Saarinen Executive Swivel Arm Chair

saarinen executive swivel arm chair

In his groundbreaking collection of 1957, Eero Saarinen transformed executive seating into a fluid, sculptural form. Recognizing the importance of user comfort, Saarinen became the first to construct a chair shell from fiberglass, a pliable material that flexes in response to body weight. The chair is available with and without arms, and features metal or wood legs, or a swivel base. The armless chair with a plastic back, ideal for café applicatons, is a recent reintroduction.

Son of the celebrated architect Eliel Saarinen, Eero was classically trained in sculpture and architecture. His collaboration with Charles Eames in 1937 led to the creation of the Organic Armchair, made from plywood and foam rubber, the first three-dimensionally shaped bucket armchair. Saarinen continued to develop this theme in the years that followed with great designs, all for Knoll. Among the many buildings for which he is known are Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C., and the TWA terminal at Kennedy International Airport in New York.

Finnish-American Eero Saarinen (1910 –1961) was famous for varying his style according to the demands of the project. His father taught at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, where Eero took classes and formed relationships with fellow students Charles and Ray Eames, and Florence Knoll. Saarinen studied sculpture at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris, France, and later at the Yale School of Architecture, completing his studies in 1934. He joined the US Military, where he was assigned to draw illustrations for bomb disassembly manuals and to provide designs for the Situation Room in the White House. He founded his own office in 1950, after his father’s death. His first success, the “Tulip Chair” was produced by the Knoll company, beginning a long relationship between Knoll and Saarinen. While still working for his father, he won the design competition for the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, in St. Louis, aka the Gateway Arch.

Hans Knoll, the son of a pioneer German furniture manufacturer, founded the Knoll company in New York City in 1938, one year after immigrating from Germany. He hired Florence Schust, a Cranbrook graduate who had worked for Gropius and Breuer, and the two were married in 1946. The next year, they opened a textiles division and showroom that was flanked with some of the worlds leading designers. Knoll would triumph thanks to impressive international contacts, gaining exclusive rights to the works of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and producing them to their original specifications. This included the 1929 Barcelona Chair. They also commissioned Eero Saarinen to design the now iconic Tulip chair, and hold the rights to Marcel Breuer’s seminal Wassily Chair. Artists such as Harry Bertoia, Jens Risom, and Isamu Noguchi would also collaborate with Knoll.